GEO Content Checklist
The working checklist for one piece of content — tick as you go, watch the bars fill, and export the state as markdown for the brief.
Your ticks are saved in this browser only, using local storage. Nothing is sent anywhere, there is no account, and the list will not follow you to another device or survive clearing your browser data. If it matters, copy the markdown out.
Nothing you type here is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere. It all runs in your browser.
What GEO actually adds to what you already do
Generative engine optimisation is a new name attached to a fairly old set of habits, plus two genuinely new emphases. The old habits: answer the question, structure the page, cite your sources, say who wrote it and when. Those were good advice for readers in 2014 and they are good advice now, which should tell you something about how much of the "GEO revolution" is repackaging.
The two new emphases are real, though, and they follow from how retrieval works:
- The passage is the unit. Your page will be cut into pieces and each piece judged alone. That changes how you write a sentence, not just how you structure a page.
- Having something of your own matters more than it used to. A summary of the top ten results is exactly what the machine produces for free. A number you measured, a comparison nobody else has made, a position you are prepared to defend — that is the only kind of content there is any reason to cite rather than replace.
The item people skip
"There is a plan for earning links to it" is on this list on purpose, and it is the one that gets left unticked. Every published account of how AI answers pick sources points back at the ordinary search index, and the ordinary search index still runs substantially on who links to whom. A beautifully structured page with no links pointing at it does not rank, does not get retrieved, and therefore never gets quoted, no matter how quotable its sentences are. Structure is what makes you eligible; authority is what gets you selected.
How to use this without turning it into theatre
Ticking every box on a thin page produces a thin page with good markup. The checklist is a prompt for the questions worth asking while you write, not a score to optimise. If you can only do three things: answer the heading in the first sentence, put a year and a source on every number, and include one thing that exists nowhere else.
The others in this set
This is the one to keep open while you write. When the page is live, the AI Search Readiness Checker will audit the whole thing from the HTML, and the Citation Readiness Checker will go sentence by sentence through the prose and show you your best quote. The LLM Visibility Checklist is a different question again — not this page, but whether a model has any idea who your company is.
Questions people ask
Is GEO different from SEO?
Mostly it is SEO with the emphasis moved. The retrieval mechanics are different enough to change how you write individual sentences and how much you gain from having original data. The foundations — crawlable, useful, linked-to pages — are identical, and a site that is bad at those is not going to be saved by a checklist.
Do I have to tick everything?
No. Several items only apply to some pages — a comparison table is pointless on a page that compares nothing. Skip what does not apply and be honest about what does.
Where are my ticks stored?
In your browser’s local storage, on this device. They are not sent anywhere and there is no account. Clearing site data or using a private window loses them, which is why there is an export button.
Why is "a plan for earning links" on a content checklist?
Because it is the item that decides whether any of the others get to matter. AI answers draw on pages that rank, and ranking still depends heavily on links. A page with no distribution plan is a page nothing will retrieve.
Can I use this for a client deliverable?
Yes — that is what the markdown export is for. Paste it into the brief or the ticket so the writer, the editor and the developer can all see which items are outstanding and who owns them.
Related tools
Every box ticked and still not cited?
Then the problem is not the page. It is that nothing points at it, and that is the part of this I get hired for.